1839 Liberty Seated Half Dollar, WB-101. Image: Stack’s Bowers / CoinWeek. By Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for CoinWeek Notes …..   The half dollar was the last denomination to adopt United States Mint Chief Engraver Christian Gobrecht’s Liberty Seated design, replacing the Capped Bust type. Capped Bust Reeded Edge halves were produced for only four years (1836-39), overlapping the first year of the Liberty Seated design. For the Liberty Seated coinage, Gobrecht adapted his design from a sketch by portrait artist Thomas Sully. The first-year-of-issue 1839 ..read more

Classic Head Half Eagle. Image: Stack’s Bowers / CoinWeek. By Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for CoinWeek Notes …..   The Classic Head Half Eagle, along with its Classic Head Quarter Eagle sister coin, was produced in response to a problem that reached a serious and unsustainable level in the early 1830s: United States gold coins no longer circulated. Wars in Europe were putting continuous upward pressure on gold prices in the world market, but the Coinage Act of 1792 continued to tie the price of gold in the U.S. to a 15:1 silver-to-gold ratio. In Europe ..read more

The Naseby Cup. Image: Yale University. The Naseby Cup is an elaborately crafted silver drinking vessel that stands over two feet tall and is decorated with rare coins and medals from the period of the English Civil War (1642-51). An intriguing object at the intersection of art, numismatics, and history, the Cup is part of the collections of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, the oldest art museum attached to a college or university in the United States. Now, a new 144-page illustrated book has been published by the Gallery that allows numismatists to explore the Naseby ..read more

Image: Coinverse. Coiniverse Ltd, the company behind the Coiniverse app for coin collecting, has introduced a new NFT-based method to verify the ownership of physical coins. The Finland-based Coiniverse has partnered with Trust2Safe Ltd to be the exclusive provider of Trust2Safe’s proprietary technology to both coin collectors and world mints. This method of ownership verification had already been available for all purchases sold within the app’s Coiniverse Shop, but it is now being expanded to all coins, regardless of where they are obtained. While proof of ownership is undeniably valuable, t ..read more

1809 Classic Head Half Cent. Image: Heritage Auctions (visit www.ha.com). By Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for CoinWeek Notes …..   In 1809, the United States Mint updated the design of the half cent, replacing the Draped Bust design with engraver John Reich’s Classic Head and changing the direction that Liberty faces from right to left. Her hair is also more detailed on the 1809 Classic Head Half Cent, and her bosom is toned down to a curved base. On the reverse, the wreath is fuller and fully wraps around the denomination, which is underlined by a thin h ..read more

1933-S Walking Liberty Half Dollar. Image: Heritage Auctions / CoinWeek. By Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for CoinWeek Notes …..   Provisions of the Mint Act of 1890 stipulated that the United States Mint could introduce new designs on federal coinage only after 25 years of production of a current design. This was done to give American coinage a predictable appearance and cut down on counterfeiting and the unnecessary expense of regularly replacing old designs with new ones. The Barber Half Dollar, Barber Quarter Dollar, and Barber Dime were early beneficiaries of this law, replacing t ..read more

By CoinWeek ….   Today at noon Eastern, the U.S. Army One Ounce Silver Medal, the latest entry in the United States Armed Forces Silver Medal Program, went on sale directly from the United States Mint. Collectors interested in both U.S. history and modern warfare should appreciate the obverse design, which features a soldier of the Continental Army firing his musket and a modern soldier in contemporary tactical gear with their weapon at the ready. Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) artist Lucas Durham created the design (his initials LAD can be found at the bottom on the left of the soldier ..read more

1898 Proof Barber Half Dollar. Image: Stack’s Bowers / CoinWeek. By Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for CoinWeek Notes …..   In 1898, as was by then common practice for the United States Mint, Proof coins were struck in limited quantities and made available to collectors in multiple configurations. Higher mintages were reserved for minor coins (the cent and the nickel), and lower mintages were reserved for the gold issues (the quarter eagle, which was the most popularly collected gold denomination, got a slight bump). For the silver coinage–the dime, the quarter, the half dollar, and the ..read more

1824 Capped Head Left Quarter Eagle. Image: Stack’s Bowers / CoinWeek. By Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for CoinWeek Notes …..   Though the quarter eagle was an authorized gold coin denomination, few were produced by the United States Mint in the late 1820s and early 1830s. Mintage levels remained fairly constant for the Capped Head Left, Reduced Diameter type produced from 1829 through 1834, but the highest number of coins produced never exceeded 4,600 pieces in any of the six years of the design. During this time, few gold coins of any denomination circulated, and those that did were ..read more

1879-O Liberty Head Double Eagle. Image: Heritage Auctions / CoinWeek. By Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for CoinWeek Notes …..   The last variation of the Liberty Head Double Eagle, often referred to as Type 3, was the Liberty Head Double Eagle With Motto and Twenty Dollars type. The Liberty Head Double Eagle was produced for circulation from 1850 to 1907, when the design was replaced by the famous and controversial Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle. The denomination owed its existence to massive gold finds in California and was produced in large quantities, particularly during the final 20 y ..read more